“My wife and son are still in here.”

The cop blinked at him, his horror somehow stretching even farther into the outer reaches of his face. “In this hospital somewhere? With Snow?”

Mike nodded.

“How do you know?”

“I know. Plus I heard my son’s voice.” He pointed at the radio lying on the floor. “On that.”

The cop picked up the radio and switched it on.

“Daddy…Mike…” Eli’s voice said, and after a beat, “Mommy…Sarah Hughes…”

“What’s he saying?”

“Our names, my wife’s and mine. It’s a recording. It just plays over and over.”

“So how do you know he’s still here?” The cop hardly paused to give Mike a chance to answer. “Doesn’t matter. We still gotta find a way out first.”

“Snow locked the doors, but there’s a tunnel in the basement.”

“Is it open?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then we’re going upstairs to bust our way out. Through the doors, windows, whatever. That way at least one of us can get backup. Your boy’s chances are better if he and your wife can just hide somewhere until we get more officers to search the building.” The cop was already walking away from him. “Come on.”

23.

“Sarah? It is Sarah, isn’t it?” Snow’s voice asked from out of the walkie-talkie’s speaker. “May I ask you something, Sarah?”

“What?”

“Where’s your boy, Sarah? Where’s little Eli?” Voice sloping down to a whisper: “Where’s my boy meat?”

She spun around, clutching the ridiculous toy train.

Eli was gone.

At that same instant she realized she could smell something, an acrid rotten-egg odor that was turning the air to rubber cement in her nostrils.

He’s in here with me.

But that’s impossible, that’s—

Without thinking, she charged forward, dropping the toy train and bolting headlong into absolute dark. Her left leg kicked something sharp and angular, and as she fell, she heard a box of small objects—the glasses, perhaps, or the hearing aids—go tinkling across the floor, skittering under the soles of her sneakers.

Then it was silent.

She was alone.

“Sarah?” the speaker crackled, from somewhere near her head. “You’re still there, aren’t you? I think you are. And I think you can hear this just fine.”

“Mommy…?” It was Eli’s voice coming through the radio. “Sarah Hughes…? Daddy?”

“Thing of it is, I’m watching him right now. He can’t see me, but I can see him. He’s lost, but I know exactly where he is. He’s very nearby.”

She reached out in the dark and found the radio. Pressed the button she’d pushed before. “Leave him alone. He didn’t do anything. Let him go, don’t hurt him.”

“I’m not going to hurt him. I promise.”

There was another long pause, and Snow said, “Eli, say hi to your mommy,” and Sarah heard Eli’s voice a third time, so close to the radio now that the sound distorted in a toneless blast of static. “MOMMY? SARAH HUGHES?”

“Leave him alone!” Sarah shouted. “Stop it!”

But she was talking to nothing.